Conversions, Signs And Wonders

By Lex Loizides

Cape Town, South Africa

Made in Africa

In January 2005 the unthinkable happened: God took Simon Pettit, then the leader of our work here in Africa, to glory. It was a sudden and awful shock. Friends from around the world began sending photos and video clips of Simon to family, to our church office and to personal friends. It was both heart-rending and comforting to dwell on those pictures.

But one photo particularly amazed me and filled me with admiration and thankfulness. It summed up Simon’s energetic and selfless leadership style, his zeal for mission and his keen support for an initiative I had been running within the Cape. In the photo, Simon is standing in front of a screen on which are the words of John Groves’ ‘Second Half’ prophecy while holding up a brochure advertising the first Front Edge conference in Cape Town. The photo beautifully captures for me how the prophetic, the apostolic and the evangelistic gifts can help our pastors and leaders build local churches and advance the gospel in the world.

It’s a thrill to see something that was pioneered in Africa, and that’s come out of the evangelistic breakthrough that God has been giving us here, being such a blessing to churches in other parts of the world.

What is Front Edge and why is it working?

The Front Edge idea is designed to attain five primary objectives, which are worked out through a single weekend of relevant training/instruction and then direct application in Guest Services in participating churches. These objectives are:

• To help train and equip preaching evangelists, giving them a further context to take a ‘step up’ in their own experience in terms of salvation responses and signs and wonders. They bring evangelistic leadership to a local church. The ‘Second Half’ prophecy spoke about a ‘more attacking style of play’ which I took to mean more evangelistic. That means we need to raise up some wonderful ‘second-half strikers’ who can score match winning goals.

• To help train pastors and leaders in our churches through instruction and through a successful evangelistic event in their local church.

• To help the local church by giving them a successful evangelistic event together – seeing people healed and saved in their own service, through their own planning and prayer. This raises the faith level in a church so that our people begin to say, ‘We can do this!’ Several of the churches have had their largest ever services, some have run out of chairs, others have seen their largest ever response to the gospel!

• Helping to train and instruct believers through inspiring main sessions and seminars that are specific to various needs in a particular region or country. Front Edge delegates can also travel with one of the evangelists to a church and be involved in the ministry. At every conference so far, more delegates have registered than we expected, and in May 06 we had to turn people away. Ouch!

• Front Edge helps build regional unity and draws a cluster of churches into a successful evangelistic venture together. Pastors and leaders take a risk together, pray for one another and take faith risks as a group. So even when results differ from church to church we have still accomplished something for God together. Everyone wins.

We can do this!

One of the great blessings is that it presents attainable goals to our local churches. We won’t necessarily be doing the same kind of thing in five years time, but God has given us something which fits with where our churches are now, particularly in more established regions. It’s easy; it’s local. Those who are responding are in the local church meeting (so the probability of adding them to the church is higher); the pastors rise in faith for a breakthrough event, the people bring their friends, the evangelists preach the gospel and heal the sick and the lost get saved.

At the first Front Edge in Cape Town in 2004, 93 responded to the evangelistic appeal in Guest Services in eight churches. Healings were reported in most of the churches. In 2005 in London we saw a similarly encouraging response of 84 in ten churches, with very encouraging reports of healings in those services too. February 2006 saw our second Front Edge in the Cape region with 96 responses in eleven churches and a youth event, and healings at every Guest Service!

Something is happening! In May 2006 we attempted our most ambitious Front Edge yet, hosting 54 Guests Services across the South East of England. These were attended by nearly 10,000 people (!) and yielded a response of 232. If I understand it correctly, that means that in the south of England, on the 21st May, 232 people got up out of their seats and went forward in response to an evangelist’s appeal that they give their lives to Christ. The testimonies of healings that took place were equally encouraging. By God’s grace we are getting into our supernatural stride! God is answering our prayers and honouring faith in His promises.

Later this year in Mumbai, India, our churches will be holding our first Asian Front Edge, and next year we go to three UK Front Edges, covering much of the country, as well as our first Euro Front Edge in Holland.

In the prayer meeting before our first Front Edge meeting in Cape Town 2004, Mpi Ndebele, from Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, had a vision of a metal oil drum filled with water. Suddenly it expanded in size and became a huge water tank that had much greater capacity to both receive and give water. He felt that Front Edge in Southern Africa had the potential to bless many more churches.

Though this initiative doesn’t by any means include every type of evangelism, we can thank God that He has breathed His life into this and we want to run with it as far as we can go – which could well mean to a church near you!